National Defence Committee on Nov. 27th, 2025

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

I'm aware that you've appeared in front of the veterans affairs committee. Can you share how many times you've testified in front of that committee?

[Hélène Le Scelleur]

I've testified four times.

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

Have you or any other people you're aware of on the women veterans council been consulted on Bill C-11? Just speak for yourself, if that works.

[Hélène Le Scelleur]

To my own knowledge, I don't think anyone has been asked the question.

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

You mentioned independence and the senior officers in your case. Did charges ever progress in your case? Were you given that choice to choose between systems?

[Hélène Le Scelleur]

The choice I made was not to report, because it directly involved my chain of command. It put my deployment in Afghanistan at risk. There were too many things at stake for me to report, so it was never prosecuted.

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

You spoke of independence and senior officers, specifically in your case. Under Bill C-11, the provost marshal will now change to reporting under the minister, so it's outside of reporting to uniform. Do you think this would have made an improvement in your case? I'm asking you specifically, because it dealt with senior officers.

[Hélène Le Scelleur]

I think it would have helped. The thing is that there was no mechanism available for me to report when I was abroad. I'm wondering if it would have made a difference. I'm not sure, but probably yes.

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Potentially it would. Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Are we good, Mr. Kibble?

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Ms. Lapointe, you have up to six minutes.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today and for sharing your experiences. Please feel free to decline any questions you're not comfortable with.

Ms. Wood, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on some of the testimony we heard on Thursday from the CAF provost marshal, the director of defence counsel services and the director of military prosecutions. The provost marshal noted that the CAF and the military police “act completely independently from the chain of command. It's my belief that victims have confidence in the military police and in the prosecutorial service to actually take their allegations seriously”.

How do those comments align with your own experience or the experience of those you work with?

[Christine Wood]

It's been some time since I went through my experience, and there are all the changes that have happened recently. I would never feel comfortable, still, going outside the chain, outside the military, to report. I was new when this happened. I was a young officer and inexperienced. I didn't want to rock the boat, and I didn't want to go outside the tribe. As soon as you're welcomed in, you're part of Canada's biggest family, so that feels like a betrayal.

It felt like a betrayal to report anything, even though I went through some very awful moments and incidents. It was the rape that broke the camel's back. Yes, I did believe that going to the MPs was the right decision. I trusted it. I said at the time, if we have police, is this not the reason why?

I hope that answers your question.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Wood.

Ms. Van Leusden, on your organization's website, there is a very powerful statement: “What if being sexually assaulted didn't have to cost you your career?” and “They faced a hard truth: the current system is failing. From that truth came a mission.” Can you expand on that message and explain what aspects of the current system you believe are failing survivors and how the changes that are being proposed might help to address those gaps?

[Donna Van Leusden]

On our training, our idea was just a matter of training everybody—leaders, peers and subordinates—how to support people at first disclosure. Within trauma, the single biggest indicator of whether somebody is going to recover is how their first disclosure is received. The first time they say to somebody, “This terrible thing happened”, how you respond will set the stage for how they recover.

We focused on that moment as being so pivotal. Why aren't we teaching everybody how to do that, similar to any other first aid? We remain frustrated with this seeming inability for some people to understand that survivors choose whom they go to. We don't get to dictate. Just trying to hand it off to padres, doctors or counsellors isn't enough. We need to make sure that everybody can receive that disclosure. That's what we focused on.

We're a female veteran-owned organization that started off with this idea: “Wouldn't it be great if people could set the stage for recovery right at the get-go, the same way we teach physical first aid?” That's what we do.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you.

Madame Le Scelleur, the intent of the legislation we're examining today is to address the experience of survivors. I would like your perspective on the possible PTSD aspects for survivors, especially those we have heard from during the study who have been as traumatized by the reporting of the experience of their assault just as much as by the actual assault.

[Hélène Le Scelleur]

If I understand correctly, you're asking me if this way of reporting is exacerbating the PTSD. Is that right?

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Yes.

[Hélène Le Scelleur]

Thank you.

For me, it is the case, because when you're telling, retelling and always going back into your story and explaining, you're reliving the same experience again and again. It's really hard to improve your well-being and to progress in a therapeutic way when a person is always being put into that situation.

There's a need to be trauma-informed. There's a really important need to have specific training for people who are receiving these survivors, these persons, these victims. As somebody just said, there's a need to understand from the beginning what's happening and not to make the story be repeated over and over again. I guess this is the main thing to keep in mind: to try to have the person believe it the first time and not to have to tell the story again and again.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Monsieur Savard-Tremblay, you have up to six minutes.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses.

It goes without saying that the survivors and victims we have here today are undoubtedly the bravest people in the room. That is undoubtedly the case.

Like my colleagues, I want to tell you that you are free not to answer any of my questions. That goes without saying. Of course, my goal is not to revisit your disturbing personal experiences. We are here to discuss a bill that aims to correct the situation. That is already a start.

I want to come back to something you said, Ms. Wood and Ms. Van Leusden. If I remember correctly, you also mentioned this, Ms. Le Scelleur. You told us that we must avoid transferring cases to civil courts. That is one of the things we heard several times. Perhaps other witnesses have made this point as well, but I am not sure. In your case, your position on this was quite clear.

The transfer of cases is a major element of the bill under consideration. We saw this as progress.

As a Quebecker, I can tell you that Quebec is at the forefront when it comes to specialized or independent courts. In Quebec, one such court was established a year or two ago, or three years ago at most. Véronique Hivon, who is a well-known figure in Quebec, has been fighting for this for a long time.

It goes without saying that civil courts are not enough. We understand that very well. Nevertheless, we saw it as progress to remove this capacity for self-regulation from the military justice system. We remember General Vance saying that he would never be judged because he controlled the process.

Would you agree that this is still progress, despite all your reservations?

[Christine Wood]

I originally completely opposed the transfer of all cases to civilian court, and that was for three reasons: number one, it's broken; number two, it offers victims no choice; and number three, I believe the CAF has to maintain control over its jurisdiction and demonstrate it can be responsible for fixing its own harms.

I am extremely interested in this idea of the court that has been established in Quebec. Sexual crimes and sexual offences are different from almost any other crimes, I would suggest, and we need an appropriate place to deal with that.

I would like to pass it on to Ms. Van Leusden.

[Donna Van Leusden]

Yes, this is the kind of progress we want to see.

We're looking at this problem, and I agree with Christine: I think Quebec is on the pointy end of this.

It's about having the choice, having some agency and recognizing there are some crimes that would be prosecuted within the military system that would not be prosecuted in the civilian system. I firmly believe it's a mixed thing, but I do think it's progress that we're looking at it.

Somebody asked me about trauma after the sexual assault. I can tell you that my release was in 2022, and I still had a chain of command. When they asked me to work on a project that invited two of my rapists to attend and I said I didn't want to work on that event because of this problem, I was told that at the end of the day I should be a professional and do my job. That was as recent as 2022.